


stand taller when you're on your knees

by gendernoncompliant



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Aftercare, BDSM, Communication, Developing Relationship, Dom/sub, Fuckbuddies To Lovers, Humiliation, Kink Exploration, Kink Negotiation, M/M, PWP kind of?, Praise Kink, Rope Bondage, The Porn Is the Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:49:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27565552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gendernoncompliant/pseuds/gendernoncompliant
Summary: Duke kisses like he’ll never be kissed again. He buries his fingers in the hair at the nape of Dwight’s neck and makes him shiver from the touch. He licks behind his teeth, pushes forward into his lap. Dwight loves having to tip his head back to look up at Duke. It’s a little embarrassing, really, just how often he’d happily put himself on his knees for the privilege.He won’t admit to that just yet; it can be his own secret.
Relationships: Duke Crocker/Dwight Hendrickson
Comments: 29
Kudos: 26





	stand taller when you're on your knees

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crownedcarl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownedcarl/gifts).



> I've wanted to write this fic for ages but I've been really anxious about sitting down and actually DOING the damn thing. Representing responsible, nuanced kink is really important to me and I hope I've been able to tap into a representation of a healthy, kinky relationship that also rings true to these characters.
> 
> I brought this concept to CrownedCarl a few months ago and the two of us bounced around ideas for how Duke and Dwight would develop and grow this sense of trust between them. I want to thank her SO much for helping me to hone the idea into what you now see before you. She is the wind beneath my wings :')
> 
> **Title from "Stranger Things" by Survival Kit

“Spanking?” Dwight asks, thoughtful and conversational. It’s a good look on him: that effortless, quiet confidence that he wears so well. He sits with one arm slung over the back of his metal folding chair; beer bottle held loosely in two fingers. If it weren’t for the fact that the chair would probably flatten like a house of cards, Duke would have crawled into his lap twenty minutes ago.

Instead, they’re talking.

Duke props his chin on his hand and levels Dwight with a smug, inviting expression. “Depends,” he teases, his voice low and warm, “Am I in trouble?”

“Duke,” Dwight reprimands lightly, and damn if that doesn’t send something of a thrill up Duke’s spine just on principle. Dwight’s still smiling though, even if it’s gone exasperated. “Be serious.”

Duke straightens up and stretches in his seat. Dwight’s gaze only drops for an instant, but Duke notices.

“I am being serious,” Duke insists. His tone lands somewhere between playful and sincere.

They’ve been fooling around for a few weeks, now. The first few times were frantic and only half intentional—just blowing off steam after some case or other wound them both like a pair of cheap wristwatches. But somewhere down the line, it turned into a habit.

And now they’re here, on the deck of the Rouge at ten o’clock at night, talking about what gets their rocks off instead of—you know—doing something about it.

Sighing, Duke accepts that Dwight isn’t going to let him to flirt his way out of the conversation. He crosses his arms over his chest and considers the question. He waves a hand. “I don’t… _like_ pain,” he explains. Glancing away, he can feel his face go just a little hot when he confesses, “But I, uh—I do like being—y’know. Talked down to.”

Duke’s told that dirty little secret a handful of times. It never quite stops being just a little bit embarrassing. But in the right hands, it’s humiliating in exactly the right way.

Dwight levels him with a small, thoughtful smile. “Talked down to,” he echoes. “Like what?”

They’re still negotiating. It’s a valid, important question. But there’s this edge of heat to Dwight’s tone that tells Duke they’re walking a precarious line between theory and practice.

Duke chuckles. His mouth feels suddenly dry.

Rather than watch him squirm, Dwight saves him by prompting, “Like… calling you a slut? Good for nothing?”

The cheerful, unaffected lilt to Duke’s voice is a triumph in and of itself when he offers a helpful, “’Pathetic’ is good.” He swallows, a little dizzy just thinking about it. “I’m sure you’ll get creative.”

Dwight nods. Based on the wicked little grin on his face, he obviously agrees.

“Okay,” Dwight says; he counts off each point on his fingers. “So, no pain. Or—no pain just for pain’s sake?” Duke nods. “Humiliation.” Duke nods again. Pausing in his count, he asks, “Objectification?”

Duke manages a dry laugh and aims his gaze down at the tabletop. It makes him breathless to talk about it with Dwight this way; even more so to see how calm and seemingly unaffected the man looks. They could be discussing anything. Sports. The weather.

“Kinda comes with the territory,” Duke answers.

Dwight shrugs. “Doesn’t have to.”

Duke considers it. “I like it,” he decides, “but I need a heads up if we’re gonna go there.”

Dwight radiates safety in a way that Duke can’t quite pinpoint or describe. He’s huge, he’s strong, he could very well be a threat. But he’s careful and considerate and empathetic in ways that shouldn’t surprise Duke anymore and yet somehow, they still do.

“Done,” Dwight promises. He looks Duke over. “I’m guessing submissive, then?”

Duke laughs. Dwight isn’t the first person to make that assumption.

“Switch,” he corrects, not that he expects to be doing much dominating of a man built like a redwood. But Dwight surprises him. He breaks into a shrewd, delighted smile and winks at Duke.

“Makes two of us.”

Oh, now _that_ —that is interesting.

Duke sits forward in his seat. The heat that’s been building slow and steady all evening comes to a head. Elbows propped on his knees, his voice drops into something honeyed when he murmurs, “How do you like it?” without thinking.

Unlike Dwight’s warm but professional line of questioning, Duke’s comes off sounding just a little too filthy. Dwight’s poker face is worlds better than his own, but Duke doesn’t miss the way he shifts in his seat and wets his lips.

Settling into something cool and confident, Dwight cocks his head at him. “I like feeling in control,” he says, “but I _really_ like feeling out of it. Bondage. Flogging. Gags.” He raises an eyebrow with a pointed grin. “Cockwarming.”

He relaxes in his chair, knees drifting purposefully apart. Duke fails at his already flimsy attempt at not letting his eyes wander.

“You can be rough with me,” Dwight says with that same smug bluster. But the façade cracks just a little when Dwight aims a bashful grin down at the table and quietly adds, “But, uh, you don’t have to be.”

Duke’s dizzy imagining it—the idea of putting Dwight on his knees. Holding him by the chin, or by the hair. Telling him exactly where to put his mouth.

“What about you?” Dwight prompts, snapping him out of the fantasy. “You want somebody to be rough with you?”

“God, yeah,” Duke blurts.

Dwight laughs. It isn’t meant to be mocking, but it still sets off a very particular bell in Duke’s head. A thread of arousal winds around the base of his spine, tangled together with an unfocused embarrassment that makes his chest feel tight. He licks his lips and presses his knuckles against his thighs.

Dwight notices.

He props his head on his hand and wears a warm and filthy smile when he looks Duke up and down. “You’re a big guy,” he hums, tone playful. “Been a while since somebody could really throw you around, huh?”

Duke swallows and wets his lips again, breaking his own tension on a chuckle. “Been a while,” he echoes. “Yeah.”

“We should change that,” Dwight hums, and Duke’s two seconds away from dragging him below deck when Dwight pivots the conversation on a dime.

“Hard ‘no’s?” Dwight asks.

Duke’s embarrassment takes on a less fun and exciting color. He runs a hand self-consciously through his hair and sighs, sinking against the back of his chair.

“This is gonna sound stupid.”

It’s almost infuriating how patient Dwight is—how he’s calm and reassuring in exactly the right way, how he makes Duke feel heard but not coddled or patronized. Frankly—pathetic as it maybe sounds—Duke isn’t used to it.

“Tell me anyway,” Dwight says, less of an order than an encouragement, but still with an air of authority that sends a little shiver up Duke’s spine. He bites down on his own anxiety and nods, bracing for the words.

“Don’t... leave, as a punishment. Anything else is fine. Orgasm denial, spanking, whatever. Just, uh. Stay in the room.” For all that Dwight feels like a safe place, Duke still squirms uncomfortably in his seat. He can’t quite bring himself to make eye contact. “That’s it.”

“Exclusively as a punishment?” Dwight asks, and Duke both loves and hates him for the thoroughness of his curiosity. “Or no matter what? Could I leave you alone at the beginning? While we’re working our way up to it?”

Duke fidgets in his chair, tilting his head thoughtfully. “Probably?”

Dwight nods. “Just curious,” he says. “Not something we have to actually do.”

“What about you, Sasquatch?” Duke redirects the conversation, nudging Dwight’s shin with his boot. “Any hard limits?”

Dwight doesn’t have to think about it. “Sensory deprivation,” he answers. “Big no-go.”

“Easy,” Duke replies. “Off the table.”

Somewhere along the line and without him noticing, one of his knees began to bounce—an outlet, maybe, for all the pent-up energy that has him feeling like he stuck a fork in a light socket.

Dwight makes no attempt to disguise the hungry way his eyes travel up and down Duke’s body. His gaze lingers on his chest and drifts lower.

On the deck of the Rouge at this time of evening, they’re not likely to be eavesdropped on, but it isn’t exactly the place for out and out filth, either. Duke settles for the coy middle ground of reaching down to palm the half-hard shape of his cock through his jeans.

When he does it, Dwight’s knees shift further apart in a way that seems almost mindless—unintentional.

The air between them practically crackles; Duke becomes hyperaware of the fact that they aren’t touching, that they haven’t touched hardly at all in the last half hour, that he all but aches from the effort of resisting the pull of Dwight’s gravity.

It’s hot. God, it’s so hot. Duke doesn’t want to be the first one to buckle, even though he knows his self-control pales in comparison to the man in front of him.

If they’d decided to have this conversation below deck instead of on it, Duke could make a real show of it: unzip his pants, tease, talk dirty.

As it is, he really, really, really does not want to risk old man Gilmartin—who runs the fishing shack down the way—finding out what his dick looks like. There are just some indignities a man can’t take. (And having to spend the rest of that old cod’s natural life getting lectured for indecent exposure is one of them.)

So, instead, Duke gets to his feet and tips his head in the direction of the door before moving that way himself.

“You coming or not?”

He resists the impulse to touch—to drag Dwight along with him—and instead leans on the absolute certainty that Dwight will follow.

And he does.

As soon as they’re through the door, Dwight has him pressed face-first against the wall—his big hands tight around Duke’s wrists, his cock hard up against his hip.

Dwight’s mouth ghosts against the back of his neck when he whispers a low, gravely, “Should’ve known you’d be a tease,” and Duke shivers so hard he practically grinds against the wallpaper.

Fuck, this was an amazing idea.

* * *

“You’re gorgeous,” Dwight whispers up against Duke’s skin. He was supposed to be at work fifteen minutes ago, but Duke has a way of keeping him in bed.

Duke laughs—a bright, beautiful sound—and squirms under his hands. “Tell me something I don’t know,” he teases, but it’s all bluster. Dwight sees right through it.

He could push. Lean into it. Try to pry up that defense mechanism and see what’s underneath.

Instead, he drags Duke down the bed by his thighs and murmurs, “You’re gagging for it, aren’t you?” and watches Duke go doe-eyed and open-mouthed.

“Answer me.”

“Yeah,” Duke whines—thin and heated and wrecked but easy as anything. A flush colors Duke all pink and pretty.

Dwight’s definitely calling in sick, today.

They’re new to this, to each other. Dwight’s still learning all his tells. Running the palm of his hand gently up Duke’s stomach to his chest, he asks, “Color?” just to be safe.

“Green,” Duke sighs. He nestles into the mattress, hair haloed around him on the pillow. Dwight’s knees bracket his hips. “What’s better than green?” He asks. A laugh strains his voice. “Fucking— _blue_. Go. Green. I’m good.”

Dwight rolls his eyes but can’t stop the affectionate grin that crosses his face. He’s in over his head with this one; can’t seem to stop himself getting attached. With his free hand, he reaches down to tug pointedly on a fistful of Duke’s hair. It earns him a blissed-out moan and a shiver.

“Okay,” he agrees, “So, tell me what you want.”

“Anything,” Duke chokes, rocking helplessly up into the open air between their bodies. Dwight’s hand in the center of his chest steals his leverage.

Dwight tuts disapprovingly. He shakes his head. “See, that just doesn’t work for me, princess,” he scolds. Duke moans. “I need you to be specific.”

Duke squirms underneath him, his fingers closing helplessly around Dwight’s wrist. He pants and whines and visibly struggles for the words. “I want—” He groans, but stutters to a stop.

Dwight pets his jaw. He offers Duke a warm smile. “That’s cute,” he purrs, “You forgot how to talk, huh? Already?” Suddenly, his grip swaps to a tight, unforgiving hold—thumb and forefinger sinking into the soft give of his cheeks and forcing his mouth open. “I thought this was all you’re good for?”

Duke breaks like a wave. He keens, arching upward as best he can with Dwight holding him down. “Fuck me,” he gasps, less a demand than a plea. His gaze darts back and forth between Dwight’s eyes when he pants, “That’s what I want, fuck me.”

“Ask me nicely,” Dwight says, sitting back with his weight on Duke’s thighs—no way for Duke to get any friction where he really wants it.

“Please,” Duke groans. He tips his head back.

“Beg.”

Duke makes a wounded sound. He shivers, his whole body struck with it. He blinks up at the ceiling, flushed and taut. His cock jumps against his stomach. For a moment, he seems to hover on the edge of something. Dwight watches and waits and holds perfectly still.

Duke closes his eyes on a shudder, shaking himself out of whatever it was. He bites his lip and aims a crooked smile up at Dwight.

“What,” he taunts breathlessly, as though it isn’t clear as day that he’s clinging to the illusion of control only to avoid admitting how far gone he is already. “You want me to call you Daddy?”

Dwight doesn’t budge. “I want you to show some respect.”

“Fuck,” Duke groans. He tries to buck his hips but can only twist against the mattress. After a moment of breathless pushing, he yields.

“Please,” he gasps, “Please fuck me.”

Dwight waits and Duke crumples on a whimper.

“Dwight, please.”

“Next time,” Dwight promises, leaning down to ghost a kiss against the crest of Duke’s jaw, “you won’t make me ask you twice.”

* * *

Duke knows that Dwight doesn’t _need_ a gentle hand.

Which is part of what makes it so rewarding to give it to him.

No one needs to convince Dwight to do as he’s told. The man has more self-control than anyone Duke’s ever met. He would sit—unbound—with his hands behind his back for hours if Duke asked him to. He’d do it in the dark; he’d do it in the room, alone; he’d keep doing it even without anyone watching to make sure he didn’t cheat.

Duke wouldn’t ask that of him, but it makes him dizzy knowing that he could.

There’s something unbearably intimate about tying Dwight up. Duke enjoys the ceremony of it: the slow build, the quiet ways Dwight’s body reacts to being touched.

When he’s the one submitting, Duke tips towards frantic. But when he takes the reins, it’s as if time slows down. His own arousal takes a back seat to the man in front of him.

Dwight’s unbelievably strong. Duke feels it in the subtle shift of his muscles when he straightens his shoulders, sees it in the shape of his back. Duke doesn’t take what he’s being offered for granted—the beauty of it, the responsibility of it.

(In some ways, trust is bigger than love for Duke Crocker. Love comes easy and often. He’s always breaking his heart against someone. He can’t walk himself back from love no matter how hard he tries.

But trust?

Well, in his line of work, you’re better off just washing your hands of it.)

Dwight wears a relaxation so deep it borders on meditative. He sighs and tips his head when Duke kisses down the line of his neck and guides his hands behind him. He sits with perfect posture, eyes closed, his breathing just barely beginning to stutter.

Duke takes his time. He doubles up the rope and loops it twice around Dwight’s wrists, dipping between them to secure the knot. He tucks a finger between the rope and his skin, satisfied by the amount of give. Running his hands up Dwight’s arms, he asks, “Good?”

Dwight rocks backwards into Duke’s touch. “More,” he exhales, half-dreamy.

“You sure?” Duke asks. He presses his thumbs into the tender bend of Dwight’s elbows. “Your shoulders’ll get sore.”

“I know.”

Dipping down to press a kiss to one of those shoulders, Duke hides a fond smile against Dwight’s skin.

“Whatever you want,” he purrs before selecting a second length of rope.

Dwight arches his back and Duke helps ease his elbows closer together as he winds the rope up his forearms. Duke doesn’t rush, but he doesn’t linger in the same way he did with the wrists. Dwight can’t stay in this position all night.

By the time he’s knotted all the way up to the elbows, Dwight’s serene veneer starts to crumble. His breath comes in controlled, shallow bursts. His cock hangs heavy between his thighs, a damp patch spreading on the sheet beneath it.

Duke runs his knuckles reverently up the spine of the ropework, fingers catching on each consecutive knot. “You look like a dream, big guy,” he teases.

“Touch me?” Dwight gasps, so small and quiet it’s hardly more than a breath.

Duke smiles. He leans over Dwight’s shoulder to press a kiss to his jaw, voice smug and adoring when he purrs, “No.”

Dwight makes a shattered sound and nods as though in agreement.

“Yes sir.”

-

Dwight comes with his face pressed into the mattress, lifted up on his knees with his arms bound behind him.

His legs are shaking when he rolls clumsily onto his side. Every breath expands his ribs and pulls at the tension on his shoulders. Without the haze of arousal, Dwight’s suddenly aware of the ache running down both arms.

Duke looks down at him—he’s so pretty and smug, it almost hurts to look at him. With the glow of orgasm haloing everything, he might as well be some kind of angel. He lets out a low, warm chuckle and thumbs a streak of come from Dwight’s chest.

“That’s a good look on you,” he teases.

Dwight laughs too, although he hardly has enough breath for it.

The both of them cleaned up, Duke sits cross-legged in front of him on the bed and gestures for his hands. He works his thumbs in circles against the palms, flexes the knuckles and wrists, tugs gently on each finger. He’s quiet and attentive and thorough.

Dwight watches the careful attention Duke gives his every ache and feels a new, different one bloom to life in his chest.

“Never met anyone like you,” Dwight murmurs, his arm stretched out in the space between them while Duke works the tension from his muscles.

“That’s the orgasm talking,” Duke jokes. He blinks up at Dwight through his eyelashes for only a moment before returning his focus to gently massaging the pink lines left behind by the ropes. He presses his thumbs methodically up the tendon on the inside of Dwight’s left wrist.

“If you say so.”

The casual nakedness of them both dazes Dwight just a little. He isn’t ashamed of his body, but with anyone else he’d have shrugged back into a pair of boxers. Naked, post-orgasmic cuddling and sitting nude and crossed-legged on the mattress in front of one another feel like two very different things. He grapples with a strange, ungrounded self-consciousness—one that’s mirrored back and multiplied by the reverence with which Duke conducts his aftercare.

Seemingly satisfied with Dwight’s wrists, Duke gestures him closer. “Turn around,” he says, and Dwight obliges. Immediately, the pressure of the heels of Duke’s hands begins to ease the ache in his shoulders. He melts, just a little, sighing into the touch.

“You’re good with your hands,” Dwight drawls, playful and lazy.

He can hear Duke’s smile coloring his voice. “You would know.”

He hisses when Duke presses against a tender knot of muscle and all of the sudden Duke goes still. It’s just for a moment, a fraction of a second, but Dwight notices.

“The ropes were too tight,” Duke sighs, as though chiding himself.

“They weren’t,” Dwight promises.

To prove him wrong, Duke digs his thumb purposefully into that same ache again. It feels better the second time, though—the tension starting to release. Still, Dwight makes a soft, pained sound and Duke clucks his tongue.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

Dwight interrupts the massage to turn around in Duke’s grip and look at him. “Duke,” he murmurs, “This is what I wanted. It wasn’t too tight.” He rolls his shoulders, demonstrating his full range of motion, before shifting forward into Duke’s space. Cradling his jaw, Dwight says, “It was perfect.”

Something about that combination of words seems to undo Duke. He surges forward so hard it clacks their teeth together. Dwight steadies him with hands on his narrow waist, but he doesn’t slow down.

Duke kisses like he’ll never be kissed again. He buries his fingers in the hair at the nape of Dwight’s neck and makes him shiver from the touch. He licks behind his teeth, pushes forward into his lap. Dwight loves having to tip his head back to look up at Duke. It’s a little embarrassing, really, just how often he’d happily put himself on his knees for the privilege.

He won’t admit to that just yet; it can be his own secret.

Duke’s hands travel the crest of his shoulders—not quite a massage anymore, but more attentive than casual touch. It’s soothing and intimate.

He thinks, maybe, that the two of them are edging their way closer towards something beyond the parameters of their arrangement.

But maybe Duke’s right. Maybe it’s the orgasm talking.

* * *

The first time Dwight slaps him, it isn’t planned.

Duke’s _pushing_. He’s smug and petulant and testing boundaries.

“You’re being a brat,” Dwight whispers against his hair and Duke _laughs_. A wild, delighted, arrogant sound.

The clap of Dwight’s palm against his cheek rings through the room. It lands hard enough to turn Duke’s face to the side. Duke sits knelt on the bed, staring at the sheets, breath gone fast and uneven, eyes blown huge.

“Shit,” Dwight sighs. “Duke, I’m sorry.”

Duke’s hand lifts to press against the crest of his cheek. Dwight’s careful to telegraph his movements when he runs his hands gently up Duke’s thighs.

“Color?” He asks.

“Yellow?” Duke answers, shocked and unsure. He turns his doe-eyed expression on Dwight. “No—green?” He wets his lips.

“Green?” Dwight clarifies, because Duke looks unsteady and stunned and he wants to be absolutely positive they’re on the same page.

Duke’s breathing picks up even more.

“Do it again?” He whispers.

When Dwight reaches out to cradle the slapped cheek in his hand, Duke makes a strangled, aborted attempt at a gasp and tips into the touch.

“Are you sure?” Dwight asks. He hasn’t forgotten what Duke said about not liking pain for pain’s sake. Although, in this case, he has a feeling the pain has nothing to do with it.

Duke shifts up on his knees, forward into Dwight’s space.

“Hit me again,” he orders. And it _is_ an order.

This time, when the noise echoes through the room, both of them moan.

* * *

Dwight holds him by the hair.

Duke’s already come once—tortured back into full hardness before he was ready, while everything was still so sensitive that it ached in the best way. Now, he’s far enough past overstimulated to have wound back around to the other side. He’d give anything to be touched.

Of course, Dwight doesn’t touch him, now. He keeps him lifted up on his knees, back as straight and tall as he can make it to follow the pull of Dwight’s fist at the base of his scalp.

“Do you matter?” Dwight asks.

Duke feels the same mortified thrill as always, being talked to like that. He knows his part. His place.

“No,” he moans. His cock twitches so hard it bobs up against his stomach.

Dwight tugs sharply on his hair, pulling a gasp from his chest. But there’s something damnably gentle about the way he looks down at Duke.

“That was the wrong answer,” Dwight tells him. He releases his vice grip on his hair and Duke almost drops like a puppet with cut strings. He catches himself at the last second, swaying on his knees.

Dwight steadies him. He cards his fingers through Duke’s hair, soothing it back into place. “Let’s try again,” Dwight murmurs. “Do you matter?”

Something white-hot and terrified blooms in Duke’s chest.

It occurs to him that Dwight seems to have stumbled into some unfair loophole—one where he somehow manages to embarrass Duke twice as hard without technically talking down to him at all.

He could color-code out. He could draw a hard boundary. Dwight has never made him feel anything except safe, secure. If Duke asked him to stop, he’d listen.

But the embarrassment feels molten and electric—even sharper than before. He feels it all the way down his chest and up the inside of his thighs, feels it crawl up the back of his neck like a shiver.

“Yes,” he answers, finally. It earns him the heady pressure of Dwight’s hand around his cock and he bucks into it with a helpless whine.

“Good boy,” Dwight whispers. The words unlace him like a corset. His lungs feel suddenly too full.

Dwight eases him onto his back while he struggles to relearn how to breathe. His thumb glides over the slick line of Duke’s slit before tracing the shape of the head.

“Next question,” he says, and Duke shatters on a whine. “Do you deserve to be loved?”

Duke manages a thin, desperate laugh. The sound gets tangled up with a moan the same way the feelings in his chest get confused and heightened by his arousal. “You’re killing me, Squatch,” he pants. He clings to the joke, terrified of what might be lurking underneath it.

Dwight noses his cheek. Their mouths brush together in a way that’s not quite a kiss. Duke’s heart stutters in his chest. He chases Dwight’s mouth, but he keeps drifting back, just out of reach.

“Tell me,” Dwight whispers. Soft as a prayer but unyielding as an order.

It’s a pathetic thing to clam up over. All the same, Duke squirms underneath him, overwhelmed and hot. “I can’t,” he laughs, arm thrown over his eyes. His throat feels traitorously tight and still he can’t stop himself from bucking into the grip of Dwight’s fingers. Heat and fear tangle together and snowball each other. He wants and wants and wants and it terrifies him.

Dwight thumbs the head of his cock, pressing a kiss to the line of his collarbone. “You can,” he promises.

They’re just words. Three words. And yet they sit in the back of his throat like stones in a stagnant pond.

(Later, he’ll feel foolish for how big it all got. Later, he’ll stand in front of the bathroom mirror and say the words to himself. He’ll wear his work clothes and an easy smile. They won’t mean anything. They’ll be nothing but words again. Words that hold no power over him, good or bad. But right now, with Dwight braced above him, Duke’s voice feels like it belongs to someone else.)

Duke covers his face. He has to or he’ll never say it. Not even to Dwight. “I—I deserve love,” he stammers. The words get tangled up on the way out, trip over his tongue and muffle behind the palms of his hands.

He makes a sound caught between a moan and a gasp when Dwight so, so gently pries his hands away from his face. He averts his gaze like a nervous animal, heart rabbiting in his chest, cock throbbing in Dwight’s grip. A calloused thumb draws sweetly across the seam of his lips.

“Do you mean it?” Dwight asks.

“ _Dwight_ ,” Duke groans. He clings to Dwight’s shoulders like a raft in a storm; his fingers press divots into Dwight’s skin. Dwight relents. He nuzzles closer, his beard coarse against Duke’s cheek.

“Okay,” Dwight concedes. “One more. Can you do one more?”

Duke doesn’t trust his voice. He nods, hurried and half-frantic while he rocks mindlessly into the circle of Dwight’s hand.

Watching Duke with a gentle, adoring expression, he asks simply, “Are you safe?”

“F-fuck,” Duke whimpers, covering his face all over again when a fresh surge of shame crests like a wave in his stomach.

Dwight’s pulls him closer, chest to chest where Duke doesn’t have to hide his face because there’s no one to look at him.

“No wrong answer,” Dwight murmurs into his hair. “Tell me the truth.”

Sucking in a strangled breath, Duke buries his face in Dwight’s shoulder. Dwight pets his hair and cradles the back of his head. “Duke,” he whispers, nosing his temple. “Are you safe?”

“Yes,” he blurts, the words half sob.

And he means it. That’s the most surreal part of it all. That’s the part that cracks him down the center. Duke built his whole life around never showing his hand, never putting down roots, never putting power in the hands of other people. And then Dwight Hendrickson came along and changed everything.

Duke doesn’t cry, but he trembles. He shakes so hard, it’s cartoonish and pathetic. It winds into the feedback loop of his humiliation and spirals it further.

But Dwight is Dwight, and Dwight eases him down.

“Okay,” Dwight promises. “That’s enough.” He wedges his thigh between Duke’s legs, presses it up against his balls while he strokes him quick and steady. “You did good, Duke,” he murmurs. “You did so good. Perfect.”

Arms wrapped around Dwight’s broad shoulders, Duke spills over his knuckles with a whimper.

Duke floats in that hazy, half-awareness for what seems like ages. He’s dimly cognizant of Dwight’s body up against him—misses that contact the moment Dwight disentangles them. But he isn’t gone for long. He comes back with a warm rag and a bathrobe: cleans Duke off and wraps him up.

By the time it’s done, Duke feels like himself again. Albeit maybe a different version of himself than he was when they started. He isn’t sure if he likes this new self. He doesn’t recognize him.

Laying on his side beside him, Dwight props his head on his hand and watches Duke in that calm, knowing way of his.

“You didn’t color code,” Dwight points out, his voice pensive, his brows knit together. “But I should have asked.” He runs a hand up Duke’s thigh. “Did I go too far?”

Duke has spent the last several minutes meticulously rebuilding the wall around himself. He feels remarkably unbothered when he offers a cheerful, “I mean, damn, it worked didn’t it?” He laughs and tucks his arms behind his head. “Embarrassed the hell out of me.”

* * *

“Hands behind your back,” Duke orders, his voice sharp and low. Dwight obeys and grips his right wrist in his left hand at the small of his back.

Something’s different, today. Usually, Duke’s a calm and easy dom—one who relies more on his submissive’s impulse to submit than on force or intimidation.

Most of the time, their scenes crest in a slow build; Dwight eases into subspace by inches, like a held breath. Duke balances smug patience with encouragement—pushes Dwight right up to the edge and holds him there for ages. Hours, sometimes.

Tonight isn’t like that.

Duke comes in hot and fast.

He rests the toe of his boot between Dwight’s thighs, nothing but the ghost of pressure. When he leans forward, Dwight can feel the chevroned pattern of the boot tread through the cotton of his briefs. He moans.

Duke hasn’t so much as unbuttoned his own shirt. He still wears the coat he walked in with. There’s something about the dichotomy—Dwight on the floor almost naked and Duke seated fully dressed in the chair above him—that siphons the air from his lungs.

“You don’t get to touch me. You come like this or not at all.”

The intensity catches Dwight by surprise. He bites down on a whine and nods. “Yes sir.”

He’s not used to this side of Duke, but he can’t say he doesn’t like it.

He doesn’t think when he grinds forward against the pressure of Duke’s boot—even though he knows better. Even though he knows he doesn’t have permission.

All at once, Duke plants his foot in the center of Dwight’s chest and rocks him backwards off his center of balance until his shoulders thump against the cold tile of the kitchen floor.

Dwight can’t catch his breath. He’s so hard, he can feel his heartbeat in his cock.

“I should buy you a collar,” Duke muses, glaring down at him. “If you’re going to act like a dog.”

“Yes sir,” Dwight gasps.

“Get up.”

Dizzy with his own arousal, Dwight rolls onto hands and knees. He stares down at the floor and counts his breaths, recentering himself. When he tips his head back to meet Duke’s gaze, something seems—

Wrong.

He can’t place it, exactly. Duke isn’t relaxed with his usual, lazy arousal or frenetic with desire. His shoulders are drawn, jaw tight, gaze fleeting. For the person running the show, he looks an awful lot like a man backed into a corner.

“Duke. Color?” Dwight asks, just on the other side of breathless.

Duke’s brow furrows in confusion. “Color?” He echoes. “Oh shit, color. Right. Fuck. Are you okay?”

He’s really out of it. Dwight shakes his head. “Not me. You. What color?”

Duke looks utterly dumbfounded by the question. He stares wordlessly back while he catches up. It seems to completely baffle him that Dwight would ask _him_ , in this moment. “I—” he starts, only to close his mouth and stumble to a stop again.

Dwight just waits. Hands behind his back, weight shifted onto his haunches instead of his knees. If Duke tells him green, they’ll pick right back up like nothing happened.

Swallowing, Duke stares down at his lap. “Yellow,” he admits. He closes his eyes. Taking several measured breathes, he shakes his head. “Red. Fuck. It’s red.”

“Okay,” Dwight agrees, his voice gentle, “Then we stop.” Instead of getting up, Dwight shifts to sit cross-legged at Duke’s feet. He leans to the left to pick up the shirt left discarded on the floor beside him and shrugs it back on.

“I’m sorry,” Duke sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face.

“For what?”

Duke burbles with a distorted laugh. “Killing the mood?” He drawls wryly. Wincing, he stares down at his hands and picks absently at his nails. “Being—like that.”

“Hey,” Dwight urges. He reaches out to wrap his fingers around Duke’s calf. Aiming an easy smile up at him, he promises, “None of that was a problem. We can do that again sometime if you want to.” He squeezes Duke’s leg. “Talk to me, Duke. What happened?”

Duke wrestles with the words, whatever they are. He tips his head back and stares at the ceiling. Every muscle in his body winds up.

“I just wanted to feel in control.”

Dwight understands that the sentiment behind the sentence runs a hell of a lot deeper than the line between dominant and submissive.

Shaking his head, Duke props his elbows on his knees and keeps scrubbing almost obsessively at his skin. “I wanted to feel in control,” he echoes, “but that didn’t feel in control, that felt—”

“Manic,” Dwight offers. He traces circles along Duke’s leg, his thumb catching lightly against the seam of his jeans.

“Yeah,” Duke agrees. “That.”

Scooting forward until their legs bump up and tangle together, Dwight rests his cheek against Duke’s knee. Duke reaches out and cards his fingers through his hair and they sit like that a few moments while Dwight contemplates the right way to approach his question.

“Where’d the mania come from?” He asks, finally. He eases the question with the rhythmic circling of his thumb just below the bend of Duke’s knee.

Duke stares down at him. He wears a naked, nervous expression that Dwight doesn’t think he’s ever seen on him before—certainly not outside of sex. It thrills him as much as it worries him.

“You… know me too well,” Duke confesses. “And I can’t figure out if I fucked up and got drunk and spilled my guts or if you’re just—you.”

Dwight smiles and nuzzles the inside of Duke’s thigh. “Hate to break it to you, Duke, but you’re not quite as mysterious as you make yourself out to be.”

“Great, I’m transparent,” Duke puffs, dropping back in his chair with a frustrated sigh.

“No, I’m just listening.”

That answer seems to intrigue Duke. He rolls his head forward and levels Dwight with a suspicious but curious stare.

“Yeah? And what where you _listening_ to that got you to the shit you said, last time?”

Ah. So, that’s the root of all this.

“I don’t have to ask the questions anymore,” Dwight offers. “We can go back to the usual stuff if that was too intense.”

Shaking his head on a dry laugh, Duke sighs, “That’s the problem, Sasquatch. This would be a whole lot easier if I wanted you to stop.”

“But you don’t.”

“No. I don’t.”

“You like it?”

“Yeah.”

“Because it’s embarrassing? Or because I’m saying nice things about you?”

Duke bows up. Crossing his arms, he withdraws away from Dwight’s touch. “Well, it sounds pretty fucking pathetic when you say it like that.”

“Thought you liked it when I called you pathetic?” Dwight teases. But he gets it. He understands the differentiation Duke’s making—the humiliation that feels good versus the kind that feels nauseous and twisted.

Duke chuckles at the joke but doesn’t answer and doesn’t meet Dwight’s gaze.

“Look, not to sound ungrateful,” Duke mumbles; he stares off to one side, down at the floor. “But what exactly do you get out of all this, Sasquatch?” He either realizes how the question sounded coming out of his mouth or notices the surprise on Dwight’s face, because he quickly adds, “Not—not _us_ , but like—the—ugh. The ‘deserving love’ stuff. It’s not exactly dirty talk.”

“Yeah, making you gasp and moan’s a real hardship,” Dwight drones.

There’s a more earnest answer lurking underneath.

This time, it’s Dwight’s turn to avoid eye contact. He runs his knuckles up the side of Duke’s thigh, along the seam of the denim, and murmurs, “I like being good to you.”

Duke fingers press against the underside of his chin and tip his head up. It sends his heart thundering through his chest, all frantic and clumsy.

“Let me return the favor,” he whispers. It’s all heat and no substance.

Duke doesn’t get it.

But that’s okay.

* * *

Dwight’s mortifying questions make frequent reappearances. They come in a handful of varieties: Do you matter? Do you deserve to be loved? Are you a good man? Are you important? Are you kind? On and on.

They rarely require anything more complicated than a yes or no answer, and yet sometimes even that one word feels utterly impossible.

They get easier, though. They don’t unearth him quite so badly as they did that first time.

Here, in his bed on the Rouge, he’s hardly thinking of his own body at all. Every atom of his attention remains focused on the man underneath him: the dusting of hair across his chest, the stutter of his breath, the strong jut of his jaw. Balanced on top of him, Duke sneaks an arm between them so he can palm him through the soft cotton of his boxers.

“You’re incredible,” Dwight sighs. His hands can’t seem to settle on Duke’s skin—rove aimlessly, fluttering across his arms and shoulders.

“You talk too much,” Duke teases, deflecting the attention away from himself.

But Dwight doesn’t let it go. He grips Duke’s upper arms. “Tell me you’re incredible.”

Rolling his eyes, Duke parrots, “I’m incredible.” The words bounce off of him, meaningless. He’s more interested in Dwight, right now, than in the intricacies of his own kinks and neuroses. He keeps the impulse to embarrass at arm’s length and squeezes Dwight’s cock in a vain hope to distract him.

“Do you deserve love?” Dwight asks, doggedly stubborn.

“Yeah,” Duke says. He barely pauses as he drags a line of kisses down Dwight’s stomach.

Dwight interrupts him by tugging his head up gently by the hair.

“Who loves you?” He asks.

Hands braced on either side of Dwight’s hips, Duke startles into a laugh.

“You know what? That’s a damn good question, Sasquatch.”

Dwight searches Duke’s expression, gazing up at him in this vulnerable, gorgeous way that almost hurts to look at. Like staring into the sun. His big hand runs up the length of Duke’s spine and it takes all the self-control he has not to shiver apart.

“I do,” Dwight tells him—like it’s obvious, like it’s inescapable, like it’s as true a law of the universe as gravity. He tangles his fingers in Duke’s hair, cradling the back of his skull. “I love you.”

“Shit,” Duke mumbles. His heart stammers, like missing a step going down stairs. He braces himself with both hands on Dwight’s chest. “You mean it?”

Dwight laughs. The sound comes out bright and big—and just a little nervous, if you know where to look. “Yeah,” he murmurs. He runs his nails lightly over Duke’s scalp. “I mean it.”

He watches Duke with a quiet calm that swells like a wave until Duke, too, feels caught up inside of it.

“You don’t have to say it back,” Dwight tells him. “Just wanted you to know.”

Duke’s heart seems to have taken up residence in his throat. It’s difficult to breathe around.

“I love you,” Duke blurts all at once. It’s been ages since he said the words to anyone. The feeling isn’t new. Duke wears his heart on his sleeve, always has: falls in love fast and hard and hopeless. But he knows better than to speak it into reality. Love exists in a permanent place of plausible deniability.

But not this one.

He’s been nurturing his love for Dwight in some hidden, quiet corner of his heart—like he could control the bloom. But he couldn’t. Can’t. It’s everywhere: climbing ivy set loose in his chest. He’s coughing up greenery.

He couldn’t hide it if he tried.

“Yeah?” Dwight asks. He wears an agonizingly affectionate look on his face, everything soft and open.

Startling into a bright laughter, Duke cradles his jaw and presses their foreheads together. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Yeah. I do.”

* * *

Dwight wakes up with his ears ringing.

His heart rattles around the wrong part of his chest. No matter how much air he pulls in, it isn’t enough. The hyperventilating pitches so fast, there’s a moment where he braces himself to roll over and vomit over the edge of the bed.

It passes.

Swallowing the surge of bile in his throat, Dwight levers himself upright and swings his feet off the edge of the bed.

It’s been years since he had a dream like that.

They’re never quite true to life, the nightmares. Memory and imagination get their wires crossed. His brain populates them with the faces of men he never served with. Sometimes, people die who didn’t. Sometimes, people survive who won’t.

Some of them don’t take place in Afghanistan; they bring the war into some faceless corner of suburban America, or to the street he grew up on, or to downtown Haven.

The off-kilter surrealism makes them worse.

Dwight leans his elbows on his knees and plugs a finger in his deaf ear as if it could muffle the noise coming from inside his own skull.

Every muscle in his body goes tight all at once when he hears Duke stir in the sheets behind him.

“Squatch?” He asks sleepily. “You good?”

“Yeah,” Dwight answers, but his voice comes out less steady than he wants it to—half strangled. Fuck.

Predictably, instead of rolling back over and going to sleep and leaving Dwight to the quiet, Duke sits up. Dwight doesn’t have to look at him to know exactly the half-awake frown that scrunches his face.

“Hey,” Duke murmurs, all soft and damnably gentle. “S’going on?”

Dwight doesn’t trust himself to look at him. He has no idea what expression sits on his own face, only that it’s far too naked for Duke to see. He stares down at his knees and shakes his head. “Nothing,” he promises. This time, his voice doesn’t betray him, but it’s too late. The damage is already done. “Just a dream. I’m fine.”

Duke hesitates. For a few quiet moments, Dwight thinks maybe he’ll lay back down and let it go.

“Can I touch you?” Duke asks, his hands hovering just a few inches away from Dwight’s back.

God knows why _that’s_ the thing that breaks him. Dwight swallows a choked noise and tries to twist it backwards into a laugh. “Sure,” he mumbles. “Yeah.”

The bed dips and shifts behind him. Duke presses against his back, his body almost fever hot through Dwight’s thin cotton t-shirt. His legs bracket Dwight’s hips, arms looping loosely around his stomach, chin propped on his shoulder.

They sit like that for what feels like forever. Duke holds him, and Dwight hides his face in his hands and shivers through tears as still and quiet as he knows how to make them.

After an eternity in the dark, Duke turns his head to press a chaste kiss beneath the ear Dwight can still hear out of.

“Are you safe?” Duke murmurs against his skin.

Dwight’s laugh and his sob tangle together into one wet, helpless noise.

“I am.” It feels good to say the words and mean them. Slowly, his anxiety walks itself back from the edge.

Duke nuzzles the back of his neck and squeezes him tighter. “Who loves you?” He asks.

Dwight burbles again with feeble half-laughter. “You do.” He swallows the lump in his throat.

"You're damn right I do."

* * *

Somewhere down the line, the ‘humiliation’ part of the exercise loses its teeth.

Dwight runs his hands up Duke’s stomach and whispers, “Tell me what kind of man you are,” and Duke aims a serene and crooked smile up at him.

He drapes his arms languidly above his head on the pillow. Without any hesitation or effort, he purrs, “A good one,” while the grin on his face blooms like a garden in spring.

He’s beautiful. He’s so beautiful.

Dwight takes Duke by the thighs and drags his hips higher into his lap, leaving him off-kilter and without much leverage. Duke’s heels dig into the small of his back while Dwight sinks slow and easy into him.

“That’s not fair,” Duke gasps, arching up off the bed with a pinched moan. He curls backwards, flat stomach arcing up into the boxy flare of his ribs and the jut of his collar before tapering to the long dip of his neck. He’s some kind of painting, surely—some marble sculpture that’s wandered from its post. Surely, he has better places to be than here, in Dwight’s bed. And yet he keeps coming back.

He stays.

They’re a funny pair. The man who loses everyone and the man who leaves. Or maybe, they’re both the man losing, both the man leaving. And both here, now, choosing to stay. Choosing it for days and weeks and months at a time, even when the world around them gets scarier and more complicated.

“Tell me what you deserve,” Dwight says, the words bowed into a moan.

Bubbling with bright laughter, Duke jokes, “How many points do I get?” When Dwight only stares back at him, Duke rolls his eyes and lists off his answers. “Uh, love. Happiness. Fame. Fortune. Take your pick.” Dragging his hands up Dwight’s sides, he groans and adds, “After this? A goddamn nap.”

“Don’t know why.” Dwight bites his lip and beams down at him. “I’m doing all the work.”

“What can I say?” Duke sighs. He visibly fights the grin trying to tip the corners of his mouth. “You really take it outta me.”

“ _Me_ ,” Dwight insists. “ _Me_ , was the answer. You deserve _me_.”

“Do I?” Duke smirks at him. “I dunno, Squatch. You’re a pretty good catch.”

Dwight sets a slow and easy pace. He rocks into Duke in long, steady thrusts that leave the both of them a little breathless. “You’re right,” he says. “I am.”

“My turn,” Duke purrs. “Who loves me?”

Dwight holds him by the narrow waist with both hands. “I do,” he whispers. “I love you.”

“Yeah,” Duke agrees. He wears a peaceful smile and rests a hand on Dwight’s chest. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading!! Before you go, I want to make sure I credit CrownedCarl specifically with the line "Who loves you?" because it absolutely DESTROYS ME and it came straight from her beautiful brain. If you liked this, you'd _love_ her work and should definitely go read it.
> 
> As always, comments are hugely appreciated <3


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